p e n g u i n d e v i l

I read the novel last week for my book group and so tonight some of us got together and sat down for the film, American Psycho. I know, didn’t we just watch it? Well, that was two years back and having read the book now, I have some different notions. The first time through I remember getting the idea that the story was a blend of reality and ol’ Pat Bateman’s sick and twisted fantasies. I kept this recollection when reading the book, which made it seem all the more obvious. With this re-watching, I’m not so sure why I originally came away with that idea. Regardless, that is neither here nor there. As a book-to-movie transition I did notice some other things. While the first time through, the movie seemed fairly explicit (with violence and sexuality), after reading the book it seemed positively mild. Maybe I watched an edited version of the film this time?

It is hard to talk about the movie without talking about how it differs from the book and, while those differences do make it lesser (in so many ways) then the novel, it actually does stand on its own as a movie. After reading the book, the relentless barrage and repetition of detail is hard to do without, and I almost sort of missed the guy and his mental processes, but they throw in enough to give you the idea. American Psycho is the story of Pat Bateman, a wall-streeter who is up to watching a lot of porno and killing people when he’s not busy cataloging what people are wearing in his many daily restaurant visits, all while losing his mind in a very misanthropic fashion. He and his “friends” are a shallow and irritating bunch of young rich slicks in Manhattan during the late 1980’s. They spend their time doing coke and gossiping and bragging and through it all there’s Pat! Pat Bateman keeps trying to tell people what he is up to, because he can’t resist hookers and killing them, and killing bums and killing whoever he feels the inclination to kill. It is sort of a harsh and remorseless movie (though, again, no where near as, oh, obscene as the book) which I think is a critique of modern culture, but whatever.

mirror for me

chainsaw for you

Christian Bale does an excellent job as Bateman, and it is an entertaining movie. No matter how terrible and unlikable Pat is, watching him go about his business is fun, it’s just got a lot (and I mean a lot) less bloodshed and insane meanderings, but they stick to the story pretty well. They did a good job with the 1980’s styles and the weaselly personalities… Bateman’s smarmy attitude is sickly sweet, and it’s not like you care about any of the characters that pop up anyway.

And something else I am surprised about. As a Mac user, I remember the days when lazy webber’s would lock out Mac users from their websites. A habit that I found annoying since only rarely is there some reason a Mac wouldn’t be able to use a website (something ActiveX, maybe), I think people wanted to limit what they had to support (though when was the last time a website gave you browser support, anyway?) or else because Microsoft paid them to (something that they’ve certainly done in the past). Just knowing that the platform distinction was usually meaningless always irked me when people would intentionally lock mac users out. I seem to remember some Disney (or something) site some years back that would lock Mac users out for no reason, and I’ve seen some banks that try it. Of course, there are always ways around it and like to go in anyway, just to prove a point. But at this point, I had thought that people didn’t do that anymore, I guess they do! Today I came across a site that pulled that dirty trick again! “Unsupported Operating System, my toches!”. I spoofed through anyway, just to remind myself how annoying those pointless biases are. But I just had to complain, as it seems like a lazy tactic and I do find it irritating.

I have a big backlog of movies, but I’m home sick (well, the whole family is home sick) and I feel like crud so I don’t have much in me. What, you ask, is there? Last night we watched a funny little film, an Australian one that seemed low-budget, like a documentary, but seemingly wasn’t one. It was a charming film called The Castle about a family who is being removed from their house due to an airport expansion. The film is the story of the fathers fight to keep their house and it is a fairly typical “David vs Goliath” thing. But I liked it! The characters are all charming and sweet (though they certainly curse a lot), and it’s filled scenes of people out of their element and all sorts of talk about peoples rights and all of that.

I tried to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it wasn’t the time and we were so bored and sick that we went looking for TV to watch. I’m a firm believer in the theory that the only good TV dramas of the last twenty (or is it thirty?) years are the X-Files, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Big Love. The X-Files gets extra kudos for being the first drama since the 70’s that I could respect, and also for being on regular television. But those shows are so good, with such great writing and characters and casts, that they are really incomparable. After watching them, these others (like the CSI series and all those hospital shows) I just can’t do… They have so little plot continuity from show to show, it just gets boring watching them do the same predicable stories over and over.

We looked around at what was out there… Oz (once we tried to watch one episode, but its “performance art behind bars” shtick was too much), The Wire (everyone says it’s great but you have to get a few episodes in. We couldn’t make it through the first one, so will we ever know?) and somehow, we ended up with Rome. I had no interest in this, but we watched it and it actually seemed like it might have some good dramatic potential so we ended up watching 3 episodes. It’s certainly not as great as those listed above, but it will easily do for something to watch on days like this.

Before the great health decline, I did watch Infernal Affairs, which I been planning on doing since seeing The Departed. As I had heard, it was pretty much the some story as The Departed, but even taking that into account, I think that they stand on their own as movies. It was nice looking, with great action, nice cinematography and a well-paced story. I also appreciate the fact that the American remake wasn’t terrible as American remakes generally are. I like the confusing nature of the plot (not quite as confusing as the first time around in The Departed, but still) and there is some great bloodshed!

Infernal Affairs stars the “always great” Tony Leung and Andy Lau (who I’m not particularly familiar with), it also starred Anthony Wong (from favorites Hard Boiled and Full-Time Killers) as the police boss, S.P. Wong, who was my favorite character, but sadly, for those of us who’ve seen The Departed… Well, we know what’s in store…

After much anticipation, we watched The Science of Sleep. I’m not totally decided about it. It is pretty clever and fun, but it is another one of those where the lead character is a rather unlikable and unsympathetic loser. Beginning in the studio of Stephane TV, we meet Stephane. Stephane is an artist and after being absent for many years he arrives at his mothers in Paris after the death of his father because his mother has told him of a job at a calendar publisher. He thinks that this might be is big chance to get his calendar published. He has put together calendar of cartoonish disasters that is a hokey yet terrible yet fun collection of silly drawings called “Intestino Grues”.

He gets there to find that the job was a put on. It is a job, but it is actually typesetting the calendars, not “creative” work. He also finds a girl living in the apartment right next to his who he, of course, falls for and who shares his obsession with making little things and fantasy. The boy/girl things starts of quite hesitantly, with Stephane living it in is dreamworld and Stephanie being sort of uninterested. The job doesn’t start of hesitantly, he is thrown right into the midst of a bunch of nuts who waste no time having fun with him by suggesting he show his calendar idea to the boss. But they become his friends of sorts, especially Guy who he becomes very close with and who tries (in his own inappropriate fashion) to get Stephane to get his act together, especially in regards to mater of the heart. From here, the story progresses, but half of it takes place in his dreamworld (which frequently crosses over into his waking world) like at his studio for Stephane tv. The movie can go back and forth quite abruptly from real life to not real, sometimes quiet clearly, sometimes there is little sign at all. The dream sequences themselves are quite good, all props and stop motion and overflowing with activity and certainly the manifestations of all of his childlike fears and desires for revenge The movie is quite cute, with fun and clever set design and great props (lots of fabric creatures milling about) , but I found that Stephane’s continual dreamworlds, made him seem a bit pathetic, though there are some nice scenes with him and Stephanie. In addition to the great visuals, there are some good supporting characters, especially Guy, who I found to be one of the highs point of the film.

We watched Straw Dogs tonight, a film that I’ve been reading about a lot these days, and one of Peckinpah’s classics. Well it was quite fine. Dustin Hoffman is an American who has married a English woman and moved into the British countryside (to a town where she used to spend lots of time) to, once again, write a book. The locals don’t seem too friendly and a number of them seem to have pre-existing attractions for his wife. I couldn’t help get over my general dislike for Dustin Hoffman’s character. He treats his wife badly and, as the locals seem a bit cool towards him, he doesn’t do anything to warm them up. The movie starts out fairly slowly and we just get used to Dustin being kind of uptight. He is basically a jerky fish out of water and, when things start going on, he gets paranoid but not paranoid enough, as he is also a coward who finally gets his bravery up at the wrong time and for the wrong reason. I suppose that’s the point to the movie: a “meek” city fellow who tries to avoid any conflict he can, but then breaks. I had felt from what I had read that it was a slow breakdown, but in actuality he seemed equally lame until he finds his cause, then the movie gets quite fun. There are some good local characters and it also features, yet again, David Warner, who always makes me want to watch Time Bandits again.

And to complete an old thought. As I stated a few months ago, in Collecting Online Collections, I felt that there was an online space missing for cataloging albums that included the kind of LP’s that I tend to have. Well, yesterday I stumbled on a great one (which strangely enough, is local,) called discogs.com. It seems to be a great place to catalog your music (including LP’s which is what I am most interested in doing), and to buy and sell things. So I’ve spent a lot of the last day putting LP’s up there, something that gets a bit tricky due to a couple of things: 1) I only have about 25% of my LP’s with me and 2) of the LP’s that I tried to add to my collection, fully a third of the ones I’ve looked up aren’t listed. That is fine, as I can certainly submit them, but it does make the process take quite a bit longer.

So we watched another great documentary, it is called I Like Killing Flies and it is about this fellow Kenny Shopsin and his restaurant in the village, Shopsins’. The restaurant is one of those places that is just an extension of the man who has run it and cooked the food for 32 years. And what a fellow! A great example of what is best about New Yorkers… Honest, straightforward, confident, with no BS and no capacity to put up with BS. He turned his teeny little storefront into what looks like a wondrous restaurant with, literally, hundreds of menu items (including some of the most exciting pancakes I’ve seen since the Globe in Seattle) and an incredibly loyal clientèle of regulars. Sadly, this movie was made at a point where it had become obvious that the restaurant had to move to a new spot so this film is kind of a homage to Kenny and his restaurant and it’s trusty and homey old space.

Kenny is a lot of fun and full of opinions and the wisdom of common sense, his family also all work in the restaurant and appear in the film, along with interviews of many of the regulars, all of which adds a good deal to the subject. Though at the end of the movie, they moved to a much different much larger space…

This week we took a little break and we went off to the beach for a few days. It was a nice spot, somewhere I’d never been before… Pacific City, with a side trip up to Cape Mears. Of course, I took some pictures (mainly of the baby) that are up at my Flickr page, but more to the point, we watched three movies while we were down there!

First off, we watched Funny Farm. It wasn’t particularly funny, but it was alright and pretty much typical Chevy Chase fare. So I do find that to be fairly entertaining and charming, at least. We primarily watched it because it took place in Vermont. The story of a couple from the city who buy a house in Vermont to get back to nature, write and raise a family. Of course, everything goes wrong. Wrong in a totally overboard Chevy Chase fashion! He gets into conflict with his publisher, his wife, the locals, makes multitudes of dumb mistakes, and just wreaks general havoc.

We also watched one of my old favorites, True Romance. I do forgive the fact that it is one of Tarantino’s early writing credits because it’s soo damned good and because his writing was still entertaining when it was just writing and not a boring “Tarantino-thing” like they have now. It’s a tale of a true love, in a crazy love fashion. When Clarence meets a cutie at a Sonny Chiba triple-feature, they decide to flee from her “business associate” (Gary Oldman) and run off with some of his drugs. Of course, they are chased cross country by James Gandolfini (who is working for Christopher Walken!), and they cross paths with Brad Pitt (in his best role), Dennis Hopper, and more (including Val Kilmer as the Elvis of the mind)… It has a great cast and the movie is non-stop action: guns, fights, drugs, the mafia, the police, pimps, drug dealers… It just goes on and on as the movie gets more overboard and more violent. Strongly recommended for anyone who wants a great fun action movie with fun dialogue and fun characters.

We also watched Dreamcatcher. Easily one of the best Stephen King films I’ve seen yet. Admittedly, it is probably also the most commercial and Hollywood one too, but I’ve never really appreciated the cheapness of most of his movies, so it was nice to see one that was done up big. It is a fun and interesting alien invasion story, the aliens are cool and different from what we’re used to, with some rather unusual alien tricks and great special effects. The movie is filled with the standard interesting and fun Stephen King characters, but better played than normally. The story of 4 friends who long ago each got a “special power” from Dudditz (a surprising appearance of Donnie Walburg), a strange boy they met and came to the rescue of when they were kids. Now, 20 years later and at their hunting lodge, they fall into the line of a violent alien invasion and the violent military reprisal. Trying to avoid the aliens, escape and also save the world, becomes a big task. Are our heroes up for it?

What do you get if you let a girl out into the big world, she gets attacked and killed and then her killers unknowingly seek refuge at her parents house? Yes, you do get Last House on the Left, but in this case Ingmar Bergman brings it back 700 years and you get the story of Virgin Spring!

Max von Sydow is awesome as Töre, a pious Scandinavian farmer who sends his virginal daughter to the village to bring candles to the church. Of course, this trip is presaged with much direness from her mother who tries to dissuade Pa from sending off their only remaining child. But off she goes, with the local fallen woman as a companion.

Virgin Spring is a beautiful film, the crisp black and white rural footage brings to mind a peaceful fairy tale, but, as with most fairy tales, this one ends up quite unpeacefully. The fallen women is such due to being attacked and though she also has great bitterness to Karin, the blessed daughter, she also is quite free with many warnings of how Karin should watch her behavior and be wary of men. But Karin is a proud maiden, good natured, trusting and more then a bit naive. On the journey, they meet a number of fellows, but nothing to worry the brave Karin on her godly mission.

The other soon overwhelms herself with her warnings and she bows out of the journey, fearing for what might lay ahead and leaving Karin to trot off on her own. Of course, she is set upon by three scoundrels who she offers to share her lunch with, but they have other activities in mind.

At times, it seems a morality tale on the sins of pride, but one could also view it as a case of “god drops lots of misery on people who don’t deserve it”. And there is some good god-stuff in it. The crucifix in the house is totally horrifying and rad, the bad girl speaks continually of Odin (an old fashioned kind of girl) and the ending is one of those great and crazy “humility before god” scenes.

But on a more human note, it is filled with pride, guilt, remorse and sadness, and it is actually a sad and touching movie. But it’s also got the goods as Töre unleashes his hard-earned parental revenge prerogative. It is also quite entertaining, there are great characters, some great lines (“live out your wretched little life , the way god allows all of us to live” and “then give me a thrashing and nothing to eat” stand out) and it’s just great to look at.

Talk about sickly sweet… We watched a good documentary about what one would probably call a bad relationship. Sadly, I don’t think that I can really say anything about this movie without giving away too much, but here goes. An interesting reflection on the highs and lows of relationships, we watched Crazy Love. Beginning in the 1950’s, it’s the story of a well-to-do, young lawyer with a fondness for ladies who happens upon young Linda on the street one day. He gets her number from her and immediately begins calling her and sending her flowers. His continual attentions and his fun and free-spending lifestyle quickly takes her in and they begin seeing each other. Of course, when it comes out that he is married, she is put off. But, his persistence pays off and she is again taken in by his stream of lies (including forged documents) about his impending divorce. A few months later, Linda finally tires of this and leaves him once and for all.

Things take a big turn here as her rejection of him and her taking up with another fellow sends ol’ Burt over the edge and into an asylum. He doesn’t stay nearly long enough so when he is released, he is still nutty over the whole thing and falls into the old “if I can’t have her, no one will” school of thought and begins planning his revenge. He hatches a plan (which he, of course, hires someone else to do) which is shocking, rather despicable and quite effective. It is also just the beginning… The film takes us through the trial and the aftermath, and we end up suprisingly seeing that Burt’s rather vile revenge plan against Linda ended up working out perfectly for him. I don’t think that he could have imagined it being any more successful.

But Crazy Love is touching in an odd sort of way and the reuniting that takes place seems sweet… Until you think about it. At which point you can’t help but consider that, regardless of how charming some people might find him, Burt is an arrogant womanizing creep who probably wouldn’t hesitate to threaten, main, wound or kill someone if they denied him what he wanted. And, on her part, Linda’s actions were out of desperation (due to his awful actions against her) and she is fooling herself if she sees it as anything better than that. His revenge was a success, but, I can see why she ended up following that path that she did, it’s really just sad. Quite sad. But a good film.

Also, after hearing rumors that it took place it St Johnsbury, we rented Ghost Story. Of course, it doesn’t actually take place in St Johnsbury, though a sign for St Johnsbury is seen when they are at the station in White River. The movie does though takes place in a wintry Woodstock, Vermont, so that was nice. Featuring a bunch of old timers: Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and John Houseman, the story here jumps back and forth from these old fellows in the “present” and their younger selves of 50 years before. See, it is the story of a “club” of four fellows who, in their youth, accidentally caused the death of a young lady and covered it up. They have spent the last decades together, avoiding any discussion of the issue. Of course, no one wants to be forgotten and hidden away, so now her ghost has come back and, with the help of an obscure couple of folks, she is seeking revenge against these fellows and their families. Accidents are waiting to befall everyone as they see a mysterious woman lurking about everywhere. While the movie wasn’t all that exciting, it wasn’t that bad, either. Easily something one could sit though on a dreary afternoon if it came on the TV.

We also watched Dark Harbor. Sort of a dull point in the career of the wonderful Alan Rickman , but it was alright. The story of a grumpy couple who find a poor fellow on the side of the road and lend him a helping hand. Once they strangely run into him some more, he ends up staying with them on their wonderful little private island, which, of course, is something that never turns out well. The husband gets jealous and begins fuming about their guest and as the wife gets a little too close to this young chap, hubby begins over-imagining things. At first I found it to be a fairly nondescript thriller, even with the presence of Alan Rickman, but it did sort of grow on me. As things heat up and the emotions start becoming more obvious, the fact that it is a thriller becomes noticeable. There is also a great twist that is the rare twist that is both unexpected, and yet plausible.

I came across, thanks to Slashdot, an article at Technology Review about the state of TV news. Yes, I know that we all know how irrelevant TV news is, but the author of this article formerly worked for Dateline and was around those offices in the immediate post-9/11 times and has some pretty interesting comments. The first page wasn’t too exciting, so I’m linking to page 2 instead, about his encounter with the head of NBC..

At the moment Zucker blew in and interrupted, I had been in Corvo’s office to propose a series of stories about al-Qaeda, which was just emerging as a suspect in the attacks… It had occurred to me and a number of other journalists that a core mission of NBC News would now be to explain, even belatedly, the origins and significance of these organizations. But Zucker insisted that Dateline stay focused on the firefighters. The story of firefighters trapped in the crumbling towers, Zucker said, was the emotional center of this whole event. Corvo enthusiastically agreed. “Maybe,” said Zucker, “we ought to do a series of specials on firehouses where we just ride along with our cameras. Like the show Cops, only with firefighters.” He told Corvo he could make room in the prime-time lineup for firefighters, but then smiled at me and said, in effect, that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine.

and…

This was one in a series of lessons I learned about how television news had lost its most basic journalistic instincts in its search for the audience-driven sweet spot, the “emotional center” of the American people. Gone was the mission of using technology to veer out onto the edge of American understanding in order to introduce something fundamentally new into the national debate. The informational edge was perilous, it was unpredictable, and it required the news audience to be willing to learn something it did not already know. Stories from the edge were not typically reassuring about the future. In this sense they were like actual news, unpredictable flashes from the unknown. On the other hand, the coveted emotional center was reliable, it was predictable, and its story lines could be duplicated over and over. It reassured the audience by telling it what it already knew rather than challenging it to learn.

Read it here:
You Don’t Understand our Audience

Lately we’ve been engaging in some of that good old time fun… finding things to sell. Though we’ve had some luck on eBay (including my Ulver Trilogie boxed set, something I’d always thought about selling, since I’m not an Ulver fan, but never got around to), I am always open to finding more things to ponder selling. I took a stroll through the CD’s, to see what I might be able to part with and I took a gander at the Mercyful Fate. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a Fate fan for quite sometime. I was first introduced to them by Dave Murphy in probably 1984. He was talking about how King Diamond’s vocals go so suddenly from high-pitched to low-pitched and that was because “he’s evil man, evil”. That was enough for me! I knew I had to hear it and I went out and bought Don’t Break the Oath and Melissa and was hooked. I never looked back, but I never really looked forward either. Oh sure, I would pick up the odd Fate or King Diamond album as I came across them, but I never really gave them a listen.

classic.

This week though, I pulled out the four cd’s of theirs that I have. I doubt I’d ever listened to them so I thought they might be fine to part with. Of course, after the last couple of decades of black metal, Fate doesn’t seem quite as evil as they used to. But for someone of my taste who prefers the solace of early 80’s metal, those old albums had just the perfect amount of evil drama, metal sensibilities, layered guitar solos (or would those be “feathered”) and creepiness. But I feared what directions they may have gone in over the last 20 years… Admittedly I did see them here live in the late 90’s and it was one of those “personal greatest moments”, but recordings? You know what? They were pretty good. Here I am with: Dead Again, Time, Into the Unknown and 9.

not quite so classic.

While 9 doesn’t really move me, both Into the Unknown and Dead Again are both worth having around. They both have good songs without real much weakness. The big surprise album was Time. I thought it was quite impressive, right up there with Melissa and Don’t Break the Oath. Well, maybe not with Oath, and it certainly can’t begin to compete with those on cover artwork (but then again, what can), but it’s darn good. Of course, looking them up I do see that Time is the oldest of these and 9 is the newest, continuing on with the stereotype of bands declining with time, but considering that Time was released 10 years after that last album of theirs that I has listened to, I was impressed. Maybe now I need to dig out some King Diamond!

they speak for themselves

Like they say you have to do hard time to learn hard crime, I guess you have to go into a mental institution to become really insane. Spending a week doing hazmat cleanup in a gigantic old abandoned mental home and something is bound to go terribly wrong with you. And sometimes when wrong things happen, there is no going back, only forward into more and more wrongs.

I’ve always been fascinated by the late, great Danvers mental hospital so, when I heard that they made a movie there, I just had to see it. That movie is Session 9. A little movie about some hazmat guys who head to the abandoned hospital to do the environmental cleanup. Though Session 9 is a good and entertaining horror/suspense film, with a place like Danvers, the building is the real star. The hospital is so rundown and creepy that you almost just need to push a camera around to make a horror movie

Featuring a cast of unknowns, Matt from Pecker and David Caruso, who I’ve always loathed (especially in his terrible current role on CSI) but who doesn’t really bother me in this one. The antics of the cast are rather secondary (well, until things really start to go wrong) but the plot is good and some of the characters can grow on you, though they are all kind of jerkies. Luckily, they do more than just push a camera around the dark, puddled hallways. They add a good level of human trauma, paranoia, jealousy and conflict to keep the story going. This is another one of those where you know that something is starting to go terribly wrong, but you don’t know the what or the who of it and it just seems that opening that box of tapes in the basement was a bad idea. Anyway, so these guys go into Danvers to clean it up and while fussing around in the basement, one of them finds a box of tapes labeled “evidence” and, of course, opens it up and starts listening to them. The tapes are the recordings of therapy sessions between a psychiatrist, a teenage girl and her three other personalities… These tapes form the backdrop of the movie and add an unpleasing tone to the emergence of something wrong and the rapid disintegration of the entire situation.

In addition to these unsettling tapes being played, they throw in: more creepy voices, unreliable power, the requisite wheelchair in the hallway, puddles and drips, basements at night, splitting the party up, multiple eyeball pokes, some insanity, some carnage, some betrayal (very violent and insane betrayal) and lots of great shots of the Hospital. Including a number of creepy spaces, and you can’t help but wonder how much of it was the actual condition of the hospital when they went in there.

Oh yeah, and there are some deaths, too…

All in all, I thought it was pretty good. The lead character is very well played and you can’t help but feel his desperation, the mystery is well presented and the movie is creepy and actually gets pretty tense towards the end.

Also, in case anyones excitement has waned from the landmark a month and a half ago of PD post #200, I believe that this is “Movie viewing #400” on this blog. So there, is that worthy of a beer? I still wish I would have started earlier, as 2003 was really my favorite (and most excessive) movie watching year.

Yes, it’s holiday time again and you know what that means! Christmas movies! Last night we hunkered down with our Christmas movie pals for the annual Christmas Evil showing! You know, I actually think I like this more each time I see it. Another one of those old classics brought back to life by the wonderful folks at Troma (of course), this is easily the best Christmas horror film out there. No competition. Brandon Maggert plays Harry, a young boy whose love of Christmas is upset buy witnessing his mother put out the stocking for Santa in a way much different then what he was used to. He grows up to be a manager at a toy factory where he remains obsessed with Santa Claus and toys for the kiddies and Christmas… So obsessed that he can’t stand any criticism of the holiday or bad boys and girls. He keeps watch on the kids in the neighborhood, noting their behaviors in great big “good” and “bad” books. Then, on Christmas Eve, he sets off to do the Santa thing. With a home-made suit, that is genuinely one of the best Santa costumes I’ve seen, and a white van with a sleigh painted on the side, he goes about his rounds: delivering toys to the good kids and treating the bad folks how they deserve to be treated.

standing too close to the chimney

ho ho ho

Maggert gives an inspired performance as the crazy-man, everyman, Santa-man who fights for the spirit of Christmas on his own terms. Knowing that Christmas is more important than, well, anything else, he leaves behind such outdated topics as laws and he brings cheer or havoc wherever he goes!

And we also watched the 1984 TV version of A Christmas Carol starring George C Scott as Scrooge and David Warner as Bob Crachit. I thought this was a great version. Richly told, with great actors, and a level of depth to the story greater than I remember in other versions, this seems flawless. In addition to the above well-played and involving story, Scott is great as Scrooge and it features some great ghosts (especially Edward Woodward as Christmas Present).

christmas present